Visitor Gets Trapped In Chicago Jail For Over 30 Hours

A Chicago father got locked inside a jail facility for more than 30 hours while trying to visit his son last Saturday (July 7 . Farad Polk was Cook County Department Jail, to his see his son and namesake, when he was told to walk down a hallway and into a room for the visit.

Polk entered the room named “Visitors Vestibule” unaware that he was in the wrong place. Once inside the door locked behind him. “He kicked the door so much he couldn’t kick any longer because his foot was sore,” Polk’s lawyer Michael Richmond said. “At one point, he thought he heard voices, but no one came.”

The thick glass made it impossible for anyone to hear his cries. Polk kicked the door until his “foot was sore,” according to Richmond.

With no watch or cell phone, Polk had little to work with. “He thought he might die in there,” Richmond added. “He’d lay down on the floor and close his eyes and drift off to sleep, and it would refresh him a little bit and clear his mind and he’d attack the problem again.”

Polk made his way out of “30 hours of hell” by breaking a cap on the ceiling turning on the sprinklers. Richmond said the water started “gushing out and started to fill the room,” forcing Polk onto a countertop until firefighters eventually arrived. He was found at about 1:30 a.m. Monday (July 7).